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Fedor von Bock,
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Fedor von Bock (
December 3,
1880 -
May 4,
1945) was a
generalfeldmarschall of the
Wehrmacht who served as Army Group Center's commander during the attack on the
Soviet Union in 1941. Von Bock was considered a very "
by the book"
general and was not heavily involved in politics but also did not sympathize with those who opposed
Adolf Hitler.
He was born in
Küstrin, Germany. He attended a military academy then joined the German Army in 1897. He served in the First World War and by
1918 he had attained the rank of
major. He remained in the army after the end of the war, serving as commander of the Third Army Group.
He was one of the few
officers not removed from his position when Hitler reorganized the German military in
1939 at the onset of World War II in September
1939. At that time, von Bock was assigned to lead
Army Group North during the successful
invasion of Poland. After his success with the
blitzkrieg against
France,
Belgium, and
The Netherlands, von Bock was promoted to field marshal. He was then given his most famous mission;
Operation Barbarossa, the capture of
Moscow and the defeat of the
Soviet Union. In
1941, von Bock invaded Soviet-occupied
Poland, destroying the
non-aggression pact between
Germany and the Soviets. By December, all of Poland had been subdued, as well as the
Ukrainian SSR,
Belarus, and most of western
Russia.
However, von Bock was unfortunate enough to get caught in the vicious Russian winter, when some of his men were within 30 km of
Moscow. Temperatures dropped to an average of -30º C, but his men only had their thin fall jackets (Hitler had diverted resources to the Western Front).
Tank engines routinely failed, and their weapons jammed frequently. However, Hitler ordered von Bock to stand his ground. The Russian forces, commanded by Marshal
Georgy Zhukov, quickly went on a
counteroffensive, driving the Germans back 145 km from Moscow. German
casualties were listed in the thousands, and
Moscow would not be threatened for the rest of the war.
When von Bock asked for permission to withdraw his exhausted troups in Dezember 1941, he was dismissed from his post as Commander of
Army Group Center, to be reassigned to lead
Army Group South in January 1942, when field marshall
Walter von Reichenau died of a heart attack. Only five months later, in July 1942, Hitler blamed him for the failure of "
Operation Braunschweig", the second part of the german offensive in Russia, and retired him definitively.
After Hitler's suicide, von Bock offered his services to Admiral
Karl Dönitz, the new leader of Germany. While in
Hamburg, von Bock was killed in an
Allied bombing raid on
May 4,
1945.
While privately opposing the atrocities being committed against Soviet civilians, von Bock never protested directly to Hitler, although at one time, he had a subordinate file a formal complaint ("Meine Herren, ich stelle fest: Der Feldmarschall von Bock hat protestiert!" - "gentlemen, I state: The fieldmarshall von Bock has protested"). His nephew
Henning von Tresckow tried in vain to win him for the military resistance against the Hitler regime. Von Bock intervened, when his Staff officers planned the assassination of Hitler during a visit to his Army Group. On the other hand he did not report the conspirators either.
One of the reasons for Von Bock's dismissal is believed to have been his expressed interest in supporting the
Russian Liberation Movement, which Hitler was categorically against.
Trivia
In the film
The Final Countdown, the
USS Nimitz (stranded in time on December 6, 1941) picks up a radio broadcast which mentions that forces under General von Bock are advancing on
Moscow.
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